Way too much stuff happens when you die

Some feedback on how much stuff happens when you die + the devs want characters to stagnate?

After watching the dev video + q&a I'm a little confused on how devs want progression to feel with character death. Is the goal for players to completely stagnate, as Jon said, 'if you die, you aren't ready to go to the next level, so you should stay at the level you're at.'

With all due respect, I think that's a pretty stupid way to look at progression. Death is a vital part of the brain's learning process when it comes to video games. By having so many penalties on death, Devs are severely limiting how much the player can experiment with their builds. I was trying to do a monk lightning build with no outside guide, and made it all the way to the endgame. At endgame, I had a very enjoyable time going into maps, dying, and then tweaking my build to try and fix the most glaring issues. But, as I started to near level 80, it became impossible to make any real progression, and that became incredibly frustrating. I'd work hard to tinker with my build and finally start to make progress, and then two bad maps would wipe out all the xp I'd gained that day. It was utterly miserable, to the point I stopped playing my monk rather than try to fix it, the character at that point felt like a dud character. A lot of that feeling came from how much I lost while dying trying to experiment.

I'm playing the meta infernalist witch now, but wish I could go back to trying to craft my own build. Unfortunately, crafting your own build is not viable for anyone that isn't a streamer that dedicates their entire life to it. XP loss on death needs to get dramatically nerfed, in the current state of the game, GGG is actively discouraging crafting your own builds and experimentation.

I also think one-life map is quite ridiculous. At the very least, the league mechanics that I attached to the map node should stay in. I do agree that in order for there to be more urgency in the game, there needs to be failure and punishment if you die. But in it's current state, death is utterly demoralizing. It's like if a delicious-looking chocolate cake was being brought to my table, but the waiter trips on the way, and the replacement I get is bland in a completely different flavour.